Characteristics of Adult Learners in Professional Development

Characteristics of Adult Learners in Professional Development

Children depend upon adults for material support, psychological support, and life management. They are other-directed.

Children, to a large degree, learn what they are told to learn.

Children view the established learning content as important because adults tell them it is important.

Children actually perceive time differently than older people do. Our perception of time changes as we age–time seems to pass more quickly as we get older.

Children have a limited experience base.

Children generally learn quickly.

Children are open to new information and will readily adjust their views.

Children’s readiness to learn is linked to both academic development and biological development.

Children learn (at least in part) because learning will be of use in the future.

Children are often externally motivated (by the promise of good grades, praise from teachers and parents, etc.)

Children have less well-formed sets of expectations in terms of formal learning experiences. Their “filter” of past experience is smaller than that of adults.

ADULTS

Adults depend upon themselves for material support and life management. Although they must still meet many psychological needs through others, they are largely self-directed.

Adults learn best when they perceive the outcomes of the learning process as valuable – contributing to their own development, work success, etc.

Adults often have very different ideas about what is important to learn.

Adults, in addition to perceiving time itself differently than children do, also are more concerned about the effective use of time.

Adults have a broad, rich experience base to which to relate new learning.

Adults, for the most part, learn more slowly than children, but they learn just as well.

Adults are much more likely to reject or explain away new information that contradicts their beliefs.

Adults’ readiness to learn is more directly linked to need – needs related to fulfilling their roles as workers, spouses, parents, etc. and coping with life changes (divorce, death of a loved one, retirement, etc.).

Adults are more concerned about the immediate applicability of learning.

Adults are more often internally motivated (by the potential for feelings of worth, self-esteem, achievement, etc.)

Adults have well-formed expectations, which, unfortunately, are sometimes negative because they are based upon unpleasant past formal learning experiences.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Adults will pay closer attention to new information if they find it relevant to their work needs.

Instructors must convince the learner of the relevance of the information very early in the presentation.

The learner will always be thinking “what’s in this for me”; what would I do with this information if I remembered it?

Adults can understand more complex information than children. However, when presenting new ideas, the instructor must allow the learner time to process the information. If too many new concepts are delivered at once, all ideas will not be processed by the learner.

If learning is to “stick”, the learner must be able to apply the new information very soon after it is learned.